from Jeff Atwood. Read all the words!Well, having children changes you. Jonathan Coulton likens it to becoming a vampire.
I was having a conversation with a friend who had recently become a parent, and she reminded me of something I had forgotten about since my daughter was born. She was describing this what-have-I-done feeling – I just got everything perfect in my life, and then I went and messed it all up by having a baby. I don’t feel that way anymore, but the thought certainly crossed my mind a few times at the beginning. Eventually you just fall in love and forget about everything else, but it’s not a very comfortable transition. I compare the process to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me. At any rate, it’s complicated.Maybe tongue in cheek, but not that far from the truth, honestly. Your children, they ruin everything in the nicest way.
Before Henry was born, I remembered Scott Hanselman writing this odd blurb about being a parent:
You think you love you wife when you marry her. Then you have a baby and you realize you'd throw yourwifeyourself under a bus to save your baby. You can't love something more.Nuts to that, I thought. Hanselman's crazy. Well, obviously he doesn't love his wife as much as I love mine. Sniff. Babies, whatever, sure, they're super cute on calendars, just like puppies and kittens. Then I had a baby. And by God, he was right. I wouldn't just throw myself under a bus for my baby, I'd happily throw my wife under that bus too – without the slightest hesitation. What the hell just happened to me?
That post: Sniff. [wipe tear]